Sept. 25, 2024

​

On a very lonely and uninteresting summer afternoon, when the orange tint of the sun’s setting rays still peeked through my curtains beneath a gorgeously pink sky, I sat down and watched a movie duology for the first time. I’d never seen these movies before this moment, and even though I recognized the director’s name, I wasn’t at all familiar with his previous output. They were the Kill Bill movies, and – to Quentin Tarantino’s credit – both films were a very enjoyable introduction to his filmography. However, there was one minor, super tiny, probably very inconsequential little detail in the films that rubbed me the wrong way when it immediately caught my eye. And it would continue to bug me still by the time I tried to go to sleep when the full moon shone high up through my curtains that night.

​

The second that the location text popped up on my screen during the flashback of the Bride’s wedding. The second that I read the words “Two Pines Church. El Paso, Texas” I immediately knew that this empty, dry, and isolated movie set wasn’t filmed on a single spec of my dusty El Paso soil. I knew at that moment that Tarantino had presented to the world a version that was the furthest representation of the real city, of my El Paso. A version that made it seem that we’re just a town of 500 or less made up of a primarily white population that completely neglected its bilingual scene, along with a complete absent presence of Ciudad Juárez; a version he thought could easily be showcased with what I guessed was the Mojave Desert. And that 2 AM Google search I did just to be certain of my gut feeling proved my suspicions right…

​

I could be charitable and say that it doesn’t matter. At the time he just happened to be uninterested in using a small corner of our city considering the massive scope of these movies. But regardless, I really cannot pretend to say that I’m still not mildly annoyed with this depiction. At the end of the day, this is the image of our region that a large portion of the masses who have never set foot here perceive when hearing our name. That same image of a dusty, near empty town that one could completely ignore unless it’s to stop by a gas station while on a road trip. We are a desert region, no one is denying that truth, but in the early 2000s especially? Our sun city was so, so much more alive than any of the El Paso scenes in Kill Bill could even dream of capturing. And the best part? It still is. Our city has only grown over the years.

​

I, like many in my age group, am a native born and raised El Pasoan. The only reason I have been able to call this entire border region my home for a little over two decades was because of my parents realizing the dream that they had for me and my future: The desire to give me a better life. In their time in Ciudad Juárez, their upbringing was a whole other world of difference compared to what they gave me here. Poverty’s embrace always seemed to follow their families at every turn, the gangs that ran their block kept a constant eye on their every move, and grief’s constant sting often made their hearts bleed. But the Franklin Mountains were always over on the horizon from wherever they stood. Whether it was on the uneven dirt roads that went up and down like stitched together hills on the way to la UACJ, or from the bright, lit-up red, white, and yellow store front of an OXXO. They always knew that the next step they wanted to take was to settle on the other side of the Rio Grande and figure something out. Their resolve to move only grew stronger by the sudden increase of the femicides in the city.

​

The memory I have of the early 2000s El Paso is based entirely on the hundreds of cassette and VHS tapes that my parents had of me. Back when rusted brown metals weren’t fenced up by the border horizon for miles on end, before the modern surge of certain solid red caps, and before the giant Juárez red X came to be. Revisiting that footage now it’s easy to write it off as mostly me just doing a lot of walking and silent staring at the world around me. From navigating the long border bridge walks to a Juárez park because of my dad’s football reunions with his high school league compadres or exploring the Chamizal National Memorial Theatre right before my mom’s folklorico performances with my cousins who could only speak English. This was the world that my parents had worked so hard for me to experience, all captured on the lens of multiple plastic cassette tapes that are labeled with my name. I may not remember any of the thoughts that I had when I was six years old, but if I had to take a guess, I probably already knew then just how integral these sister cities were to my life. I really could not enjoy all El Paso’s offerings and pretend that Juárez wasn’t a part of my identity as well. On one side of the Rio Grande, I could stare in awe at the colorful houses stacked on top of each other beneath their mountain that read “La Biblia es la Verdad. Leela” all the way from the green grasses of Ascarate Park. In reverse, I could also be walking through the uneven dirt roads at La Feria and stare back towards the shining star on the mountain that flies above the small metal fences guarded by a border patrol truck. Both sights shared the same sky to me. The same sun kissed orange clouds that would fly above as our dusk settled into a final mural for the day, before the moon would take over the night.

​

Sitting here now as a twenty-three-year-old on a bench at the Ascarate Healing Garden beneath the unrelenting heat of peak summer weather and basking under the smallest shade of a palm tree leaf, the color that I used to vividly see back then has grown dimmer over the years. The sun still commands the clouds beautifully and still paints the skies in a way that I could stare at them for hours on end, don’t get me wrong. But I cannot deny that the rusted, brown, miles-long wall feels more like a stain to our horizon line than it does offer any of the “protection” it was pitched with. I grew up seeing the constant construction of it way back when on the drives along the border highway to Cordoba Bridge. The once easily visible colorful houses on the other side where one half of my family tree still lives were now only visible behind the blank spaces between the bronze bars. The only thing that towers above it now es la X roja de Juárez that marks the spot of my childhood years, and with the barbed wire that has been recently added to the fence’s head, they seem more like gray hairs from this distance with the way their thin curls flap with the breeze.

​

I really can’t help but feel like we’re still used as a prop. I mean, we're undeniably used as such by an ex-President for racist remarks against our immigrant population. To spread fear that the supposed united fabric and safety of the United States is in danger from “invaders” despite evidence of the contrary. These people in offices of power may have visited us, but they didn’t bother to know us. To live with us. And it’s evident that they don’t really care to do so. As a result, we were targeted in a hate filled massacre that was also undeniably fueled by racism and white supremacy. El Pasoans were then used as props yet again when he and his wife visited with the goal of taking PR photos with our survivors that were topped off with his signature thumbs up and “nothing is wrong” grin. Sitting here, hearing the fountain’s musical stream run on both sides of this memorial. Seeing the memorial’s perpetually lit flame behind me dance with the temperate breeze and listening to the solitary bee buzzing through the flowers in full bloom, the news cycle and the headlines from that week flash in my mind. We may have survived as a much more united city, and we may have shown the world our steadfast resolve with “El Paso Strong”, but that doesn’t change the fact that the American cycle of public shootings keeps occurring again, and again, and again. And the fear mongering around non-white immigrants has only gotten worse, and worse, and worse.

 

Before I allow myself to go home I walk on the garden’s brick pathways one last time. Looking at every single one of the bronze names engraved in the twenty-three plaques against the white wall that holds them in place. The fountain’s steady song blends with the wind, and by the time I reach the final name, the bee that kept me company flies away. We lost people from all walks of life that day from the violence that comes with ignorance, and there’s no way for me to know if El Paso being a more widely recognized city could have prevented anything that took place that day. And hell, I don’t even know if the building of the wall and the symbol of rejection that it immortalized could have been stopped either. But if there’s one thing I have come to realize after being a spectator for so long, it’s this. If our city and our region keeps being seen and treated as this intangible space without an identity of its own to be used haphazardly by people in power, it will just cause more harm than good. Especially for any other cities in the nation made up of minority communities like us…